


Of Paper Airplanes and Spaceship Noises

by DwellTheBraveAtHeart



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Engineering VS Biochem, F/M, Fluff, Spaceship Noises, paper airplanes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-04
Updated: 2016-06-04
Packaged: 2018-07-12 05:47:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7087660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwellTheBraveAtHeart/pseuds/DwellTheBraveAtHeart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Fitz is bored, he makes spaceship noises and Simmons throws carefully constructed paper airplanes at him. Here are several instances of that through out the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Paper Airplanes and Spaceship Noises

_i._

He should be studying. Fitz knew that. Finals were in three days but that didn’t stop him from sitting at his desk and moving his prototypes around while making spaceship noises. His textbooks were lying in front of him, firmly closed as his pencils sat motionless next to them. Fitz had all the tools to be studying very hard, but he just couldn’t bring himself to use them. He could always study tomorrow. There was still  _ plenty _ of time. Kind of.

In fact, Fitz was procrastinating so hard and putting so much attention into his authentic spaceship noises, that he failed to notice Simmons stood at his dorm door with textbooks, flashcards and highlighters piled in her arms. She wasn’t surprised to see Fitz doing absolutely no work and she would be lying if she said weren’t a little impressed at his dedication to doing no revision (and the authenticity of his spaceship noises). But the evening would still be far from productive if he carried on this way.

Simmons further opened the door to his room, rolling her eyes at the fact that the engineer in front of her didn’t even seem to notice his door opening, or her dumping her stuff on top of his bed. She began to wonder how engrossed he was as she sat cross-legged on his sheets, her back leaning against his wall and began to carefully construct a paper airplane. 

“Fwooooooosh,” Fitz said, waving his battery prototype in front of his face with every intention of having it make a spectacular landing onto his desk, when its landing site was then stolen by a very neatly folded paper airplane, accompanied by a dainty “Nyoooooooooom!” Fitz turned around with his battery midair, a little shocked, but not entirely surprised by Simmons’ presence.

“Just a little something to aid with your revision,” Simmons said sweetly, pulling her textbook toward her. Fitz looked back at his desk, placing the battery down before unfolding the paper airplane to see the equations they would need for their chemical kinetics exam. All colour coded according to importance and arranged in likelihood to appear on the test paper, in Simmons neat handwriting. Fitz rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically as he slumped in his chair.

“Of all the things! You interrupt what is a  _ very _ important space journey, to give me chemical kinetics equations?! I know them already, Simmons. Stop pushing your studying agenda on me!” Fitz grumbled, spinning his chair to face her. 

“Oh, Fitz,” Simmons sighed fondly and shook her head slowly as she began to read the next chapter. 

Fitz sighed exaggeratedly one more time before turning back and carefully refolding the paper airplane. He held it in his hands for a moment, just appreciating how neat Simmons handwriting managed to look, even when on a piece of paper that had been folded many times. The engineer placed the airplane in front of him, smirking at it before pulling his textbook toward him and opening it to the beginning of a new chapter.  
  


_ii._

Fitz was making noises again, but Simmons, being as attuned to her best friend as she was, didn’t even realise until the agents from the lab next to them popped their heads in to say goodbye and looked at him oddly. She had followed their gaze and couldn’t stop an affectionate smile from gracing her lips. As soon as the D.W.A.R.F.s had been finished, Fitz had taken to flying them around the lab, making sound effects to accompany them. It had been the subject of much laboratory banter. Especially when Fitz had taken to pinching Simmons’ stationary and hiding it on the highest shelves. 

Simmons put the last of her papers into folders and stood at her desk for a moment, just watching Fitz smile as he flew the D.W.A.R.F.s around him. It was nice to see him so relaxed, especially since work had been picking up a lot recently. They’d barely had time to have lunch the past couple of days and while that hadn’t bothered Simmons as much, Fitz  _ needed _ lunch time. 

She thought about the papers in her drawer as she watched, the ones requesting the two of them to be on a field team. They could see the world and have adventures together. The idea was endlessly appealing to Simmons (“We might even see aliens, Fitz! Real live  _ aliens _ ! Or alien  _ technology _ !”), but she wasn’t sure Fitz would see it the same way. She knew he didn’t deal well with change. So Simmons stared at him for a little longer, watching how his eyes would light up as the D.W.A.R.F.s passed over his head. How his curls would shift as he turned so his gaze could follow them around. 

Her hands reached for a spare piece of paper, folding it into as neat a paper airplane as she had been doing for the past couple of years. Smiling, she picked up a pen from her desk and wrote on the wing before sending it flying through the air to land on Fitz’s lap. 

Fitz’s looked down at the origami masterpiece that lay across him, smiling brightly at the words ‘ _ Home time’ _ written in an all too familiar scrawl. He turned to look at her, his eyes a little extra blue under the lights of the lab, making Simmons stare at him prehaps longer than she thought she ought to. Her smiled widened and she even giggled as he sent over one of the D.W.A.R.F.s, making them pick up the remaining pens scattered across her desk and put them back in her pen pot.

“Come on then!” Fitz said, hopping out of his chair as he caught the drone in his hand and put it back in its case. “New episode of Doctor Who tomorrow, and that means-”

“We have to re-watch last week’s, tonight! Good thinking, doctor Fitz,” Simmons replied, shrugging off her lab coat as Fitz moved toward the door, holding it open as he waited for her to catch up.

“Allons-y!”

  
_iii._

All Fitz could hear was Jemma pacing back and forth along the side of her bed. He couldn’t quite remember what had started this particular ‘Pace and List’ as he had dubbed them, but somewhere along the line, he had started fiddling with Simmons’ TARDIS pillow and making the relevant noises under his breath as he sat on her bed. 

Their bunks on the Bus were small; Fitz was impressed that Jemma could even find room to pace. Admittedly, he’d wince every time her shoulder would knock against the door frame, but it didn’t seem to bother her. Her hair was slightly falling out of her ponytail, framing her face as she walked with vigor and her hands were moving about animatedly. Fitz would glance up at her every now and then, smirking slightly as she continued to talk.

“This wasn’t a mistake, right? We’ve seen so many  _ amazing _ things,” Jemma said, fiddling with her sleeves for a moment before continuing to traipse back and forth in front of Fitz. “Being part of this team is brilliant, but you said there would be a time that we would regret coming into the field and after what’s happened, I-”

“Jemma, stop,” Fitz interrupted, moving his leg to stop her in her tracks. “We’re not going anywhere. I know what I said, but...we have friends. A family of sorts. We’re doing good work and...you were right.” Her eyes lit up and a small smile teased the corner of her mouth when she heard Fitz say those words. Many witty one liners and teasing remarks sailed through her head, but she paused as he continued talking. “I mean, as long as you don’t throw yourself out of anymore planes...I think we’re good.” Fitz laughed uncomfortably, glancing back down to the TARDIS pillow in his hands.

Jemma sat down on the edge of her bed, reaching out to place her hand on his knee before saying, “Yeah, we’re good.” She squeezed his knee gently before looking up into Fitz’s eyes. They shared a small, comforting smile. The kind they used to in the academy when they were sure they were the only ones who  _ really _ knew what their professors were talking about. “But your TARDIS noises need some work,” Jemma added, leaning over to grab the pillow from him.

“Shut up. My TARDIS noises are great.”  
  


_iv._  


The tension was still ripe as his back faced her while she was at her computer. It was how they usually sat; nothing was different with the layout, but the space between them (both emotionally and physically) bothered Jemma deep in her heart. Every few words she typed, her eyes would flit back to his curls and his hunched over back, and how he wasn’t looking at her or they weren’t talking. Well, they were talking to each other now, but not like they used to. They weren’t  _ talking _ .

She could see his reflection in his computer screen, mouthing the words as he read them, as his left hand shook slightly. Jemma felt a pang of guilt, but she shook her head and buried the feeling. Her time at Hydra had been bad - she’d hated it with every fibre of her being. Not being around Fitz was something she was not accustomed to, or something she enjoyed. But she left  _ for  _ him, so he could recover. Now she could see that all her leaving did was fracture their relationship even more. However, Jemma couldn’t let herself dwell on that; they’d come so far since those silent encounters after her return. But she still yearned for more than polite conversations and tension filled silence as they sat in their lab.

Her attention snapped back to Fitz as he leaned back in his chair, shifting to his right as he continued to read the screen in front of him. Jemma sighed quietly, as she watched him. Every fibre of her being wanted to reach out to him, but for the first time in ten years, Jemma Simmons had no idea how.

Fitz continued to shift back and forth in his chair as she watched him and part of her hoped he could feel her eyes boring into the back of his head so he would turn around say something - say  _ anything _ . But Jemma knew better than to expect Fitz to address the tension between them. Neither of them were very good at emotional confrontation or actually talking about what they were feeling. She needed to take this one step at a time. 

Her eyes remained fixed on him as a carefully constructed paper airplane hit his computer screen and then fell onto his keyboard. She could practically picture the shock on his face as he looked at it. He turned to look at her slowly, his blue eyes meeting her own gaze. 

The biochemist couldn’t stop the small smile that graced her lips as she whispered, “Nyooooom,” into the distance between them. Fitz’s smiled mimicked her own as he pushed himself out of his chair and took two agonisingly slow steps toward her. He kept his gaze locked with hers, his smile growing a little wider as he began to speak.

“Shall I put the kettle on?” Jemma couldn’t remember the last time she had smiled so broadly at the notion of tea.

  
_v._

This scene was familiar - the two of them sat in their lab at their respective workbenches. But the air was tinged with sorrow and mourning, as was the rest of the base. They had all lost Lincoln and were doing their best to carry on, but with Daisy AWOL and not much to use in the lab as a distraction, all Jemma could do was stare blankly at her screen. 

She heard Fitz’s footsteps and his drastically improved spaceship noises draw nearer, before she saw the flash of white paper whizz past her face. Jemma sat back in her chair, looking at the paper with confusion before looking up at Fitz. He stood at the side of her desk with his hands buried in his pockets, giving her a tiny smile before nodding toward the paper airplane in front of her.

Slowly, Jemma reached toward it, unfolding it and laughing breathily at the sight of a list of fish that could be found in the Seychelles. There were tears behind her eyes as she stood up from her chair, list in hand and turned to Fitz. He pulled her into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“I think a holiday is exactly what we need,” he whispered as Jemma nuzzled into his chest. She laughed again, looking at the creased paper in her hand.

“Are you trying to out romantic me using my  _ own _ romantic gesture?” Jemma asked, earning a chuckle and a tighter squeeze from Fitz.

“Our best work is always done together.” Jemma laughed along with him this time, sighing contentedly as Fitz held her, trying to banish all bad thoughts and instead thinking of airplanes and pleasant, inviting, sunny beaches.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has been with me a while and, to be honest, isn't as good as I'd like it to be. But I don't think I can do anymore to it without deciding to scrap the whole thing, so here we are! Enjoy ! :) xx


End file.
